F1 points and costs on WMSC agenda

The FIA is proposing radical cost-cutting measures to attract new teams

The World Motor Sports Council meets today and will consider, among other things, FOTA’s proposal to increase the number of points scored by the winner in F1 races to 12.

Plans to further reduce F1 costs will also be considered. But which proposals will get the FIA’s stamp of approval?

Changing F1 points

FOTA wants to change F1’s points system from 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 to 12-9-7-5-4-3-2-1 – giving two more points to winners, and one more to the drivers who finish second and third.

As they have been at pains to point out, this has the backing of all ten of the F1 teams and, they claim, the majority of the sports fans. The FIA will have to have a good reason not to pass it if they don’t.

This move would go against the decision made in 2003 to reduce the points difference between first and second. This was a (poorly thought-out) reaction to Michael Schumacher winning the 2002 world championship on July 21st – the earliest it had ever been done in a season.

Cutting F1 costs

It seems you can’t put two F1 people in a room together right now without them talking about how to make the sport cheaper.

Today we could find out just how far Max Mosley is prepared to push his cost-cutting agenda. In essence, we’re likely to see the ‘customer cars’ argument re-visited, albeit with slightly different terms and a different name too. Mosley wants to make sure the USF1s and maybe even the Prodrives of the world can step in shore up the grid.

If adopted by the World Motor Sport Council, the new regulations will enable a team to compete for a fraction of current budgets but nevertheless field cars which can match those of the established teams.

Allowing teams with smaller budgets than the manufacturers to keep up with them on the track? You have to ask yourself how many car makers will be willing to go along with that. And so it’s not difficult to read this statement as the FIA admitting it expects to see more manufacturers leave the sport.

Already this week we’ve heard how the Toyota board considered pulling its F1 team and has slashed its budget for 2009. F1 costs clearly need to get under control and it’s not clear whether enough has been done yet.

There are two significant things Mosley could do to ease the teams’ financial burden: he could agree to FOTA’s proposal that the teams use standard Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems in 2009 – backing down on his previous desire for F1 to become a test bed for KERS development. Conversely, he could demand Ecclestone gives more money to the teams.

Either of these would be controversial and surprising. Let’s see what comes out of the meeting.

32 comments on “F1 points and costs on WMSC agenda”

the FIA is proposing that teams choose between that route and going on a completely different tack and accepting a budget cap of perhaps $40m a year but being allowed technological freedom to develop whatever they can for a certain amount of money. In order to balance the two approaches the FIA would have to be allowed the right to tinker with the rules to get the right equivalency.

I agree that a budget cap is unworkable. With some many different funding streams coming into and out of F1 it would be virtually impossible to make sure everyone has a level playing field. It switches the emphasis from having the cleverest engineers to having the cleverest accountants.

I think the customer car idea is one that perhaps with the global economy the way it is, needs to be seriously looked at to secure the financial future of the sport.

I think that if the fia opened up 2 more places on the grid for cusomter teams, where they bought chassis/engines/gearbox etc from the established manafacturers but they wouldnt be included in the constructors championship.

something has to be done.

15 years ago the only manafcaturer with a team was ferrari, everyone else bought their engines and just developed their own chassis. the teams need to get back to this because the manafacturers will only stay for as long as it suits their budgets and pr’s.

I don’t see why the whole thing cannot be opened up completely so that a team, with a set budget can decide which engine/chassis/gearbox/tyre combination they want.
This would allow other engine and chassis makers into the sport, as all the manufacturers would have to develop at a price determined by what the teams are willing to spend. This also allows the Manufacturers who are having trouble staying in F1 to reduce their involvement, but still be connect to a team or teams.
If the team can afford to do it all themselves, then fine, they can, but if not then why not have complete freedom of choice.
FOTA/FOM/FIA can lay down the ‘specifications’ for each component, and which parts are to be ‘standard’ on all cars, and after that, it will be what the budget decides is possible.
And as for teams with ‘customer’ cars or engines not being counted in the Manufacturers Championship, all you need to do is say its the Team Championship instead!

I’m wondering how and why you go through this percentages… 66% better than 80% 75%, or 60%.

Probably I’m missing something maybe because I’m not a stats genious.

I’m a little lump on this, but I think what Fans want is more incentives for overtaking, so, pay with more points those drivers who overtake others in track during the race.

Related to FOM’s rights and money for the teams, I couldn’t agree more.

The realistic way should be FOTA buys FOMĀ“s rights and make a distribution along all teams… and circuits, of net profits. Well, I would say realistic in one way, but I would like to see FOTA agreeing a “realistic” way for distributing net profits!!

IDR – regarding your points idea, you would then get drivers deliberatly qualifying last to try and make points up on by over taking slower cars – This would be very gimmicky and artificial. What the points system is trying to do is stop people being content with being 2nd 3rd or 4th and trying to get them to take the risk.

FOTA buy FOM’s (aka Bernie’s) rights – err nice idea but I don’t think the teams have a couple of billion at their disposal – they are struggling to find enough to race their own teams for now.

I wish they would just go back to the pre-Schumacher dominance point system.

They are swinging from one extreme to another. A driver wins the championship too early so they make the point differential less. Now they are upset that wins are not rewarded enough and are trying to make the differential more. If this season the WDC is wrapped up with 2 races to go, there will be calls to mess with the points system again.

FOTA explained why they went for the smaller relative difference between 1st and 2nd. It’s a compromise between awarding drivers for first place and not making the gap too big to keep the competition (mathematically) exciting.

I’m fairly happy with FOTA’s proposal for the difference in points between first and second. If the difference is too high then the championship can be won early in the season; too low and people don’t go for the win.

I’d like to see the points extended further down the finishers. The proposals see anybody 8th or above get points. However, there are a number of teams which struggle to reach 8th and they end up with very few points at the end of the season. Extending the points down to finishers who are say 12th (or maybe as far as 15th) might give make it easier to compare the lower teams. Anybody who failed to finish or was below say 12th wouldn’t get any points. If this means a points system of say 16-13-11-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 so be it.

Regarding points, I seriously don’t understand why the FIA or FOM or FOTA can’t just revert to the 1991-2002 system of 10-6-4-3-2-1. There’s nothing wrong in admitting a mistake. However, 12-9-7 sounds good to me, too.

On cost cuts, I’m afraid teams will always spend whatever they can get their hands on. Whether that’s ā¬10m, ā¬50m or ā¬300m. The FIA wants to come up with rules that enable teams with smaller budgets (in the ā¬50m bracket), so larger-budget teams spending a multitude of that (until 2008, Toyota with almost half a billion dollars per annum), do not gain too much by spending such an amount.

Now, I for one would like to see that happen. I would not like to see it happen through standardisation, though, and just that seems to ben on the FIA’s mind.

So if you can’t enforce rules to enable teams to be competitive at a smaller budget without taking the essence of Formula One apart, I’m all for budget caps. And I’ll leave it to the really smart people to come up with a way to enfore that cap.

if there was a budget cap – all of a sudden there would be ‘3rd party’ companies building front wings and selling them to 1 specific team for $1. (the 3rd party company being someway owned by the team).

So you set fixed prices that must be paid for any set part from a 3rd party and this has to be agreed by all teams, also state that any 3rd party suppliers must make their parts available to all teams on the grid for the same price…

Of course there are ways around a budget cap. If you state that the FIA must prove the participant has broken the rules. If you make the participants prove that they comply with the budget cap rules, it would be a bit easier to monitor. But that’s just my ā¬0.02.

70% of a win for the second place, which is a desirable amount. And it’s a perfect compromise between the pre-Schumi 60% and the 80% of today’s system. It’s similar to the pre-2003 system in that there are 10 points for the winner (which feels like the best number possible for a win), but it awards not 6, but 7 drivers.
In a field of only 20 cars, awarding 7 drivers (35% of the field) with points seems very appropriate.

The new points system would be an improvement over what we have now and with the teams all behind it, I fully expect this one to be passed (unless there’s some surprise last-gasp plea from Bernie for a medals system).

It does sound like we’re heading back towards a customer cars scenario but if it – or something similar – does happen it might just be for the short term, to carry the sport through the current economic climate.

Budget caps? Well, if they *can* be fully policed, then those opened up car regulations sound mighty appealing… :)

I’m all for a budget cap. I think if the teams want it to happen they’ll find a way to work out the details. It does seem to be basically that or drift ever closer to a spec-series which I doubt they’re going to like very much.

Formula1 is a business. And the whole concept of business is growth. I have never seen where you tell a company they can only grow up to a certain level or where and how to invest their money.
The bottom line is this, if you want to have limits on budget, then by all means adopt GP2 racing format. That way we can have a universal racing format with cost limit. Then also have a league system so teams can drop out of the top tier of they are the lowest placed.

Of course thats ridiculous, but why are we preoccupied with trying to prolong the life of the existing teams? Isn’t the concept of change, life and death normal also in business? There will always exist teams that will prosper, and those that will flounder. Lets make the rules as such that it makes for the building of simple and competitive race cars such that, it would be pointless spending hundreds of millions seeking an extra micro second. Then allow the teams to run their business high up or to the ground.

If the winner gets fastest lap he gets a 4 pt advantage (as pre 2003) but if second place man gets fastest lap he gets 9 pts. This will reward the winner whilst keeping the championship close: a 3rd place Massa for example may push for fastest lap if Hamilton is in second for example.

A number of measures were agreed to help reduce costs and increase interest in the FIA Formula One World Championship.

2009 Formula One Regulations

Points

The WMSC accepted the proposal from Formula One Management to award the driversā championship to the driver who has won the most races during the season. If two or more drivers finish the season with the same number of wins, the title will be awarded to the driver with the most points, the allocation of points being based on the current 10, 8, 6 etc. system.

The rest of the standings, from second to last place, will be decided by the current points system. There is no provision to award medals for first, second or third place. The Constructorsā Championship is unaffected.

The WMSC rejected the alternative proposal from the Formula One Teamsā Association to change the points awarded to drivers finishing in first, second and third place to 12, 9 and 7 points respectively.

Testing

Teams will be allowed to carry out three one day young driver training tests between the end of the last event of the Championship and 31 December of the same year. Drivers are eligible only if they have not competed in more than two F1 World Championship Events in the preceding 24 months or tested a Formula One car on more than four days in the same 24 month period.

Teams can also conduct eight one day aerodynamic tests carried out on FIA approved straight line or constant radius sites between 1 January 2009 and the end of the last Event of the 2009 Championship.

Media

The FIA will publish the weights of all cars after qualifying at each Event.

For greater clarity for spectators and media, wet tyres have been renamed āintermediateā and extreme-weather tyres renamed āwetā.

On the first day of practice all drivers must be available for autograph signing in their designated team space in the pit lane.

All drivers eliminated in qualifying must make themselves available for media interviews immediately after the end of each session.

Any driver retiring before the end of the race must make himself available for media interviews after his return to the paddock.

All drivers who finish the race outside the top three must make themselves available immediately after the end of the race for media interviews.

During the race every team must make at least one senior spokesperson available for interviews by officially accredited TV crews.

A number of further amendments were adopted for the 2009 Technical Regulations. Full details will be available shortly on http://www.fia.com.

2010 Formula One Regulations

Budgets

As an alternative to running under the existing rules, which are to remain stable until 2012, all teams will have the option to compete with cars built and operated within a stringent cost cap.

The cost cap is Ā£30m (currently approximately ā¬33 or $42m). This figure will cover all expenditure of any kind. Anything subsidised or supplied free will be deemed to have cost its full commercial value and rigorous auditing procedures will apply.

To enable these cars to compete with those from teams which are not subject to cost constraints, the cost-capped cars will be allowed greater technical freedom.

The principal technical freedoms allowed are as follows:

1. A more aerodynamically efficient (but standard) under body.
2. Movable wings.
3. An engine which is not subject to a rev limit or a development freeze.

The FIA has the right to adjust elements of these freedoms to ensure that the cost-capped cars have neither an advantage nor a disadvantage when compared to cars running to the existing rules.

Click here for a Q&A document regarding the 2010 cost cap.

The Honda Racing F1 Team requested to change its name to the Brawn GP Formula One Team. The WMSC accepted this request on the basis that the team is, in effect, a new entry in the FIA Formula One World Championship. The contract the team had with the FIA was to run as āHondaā, which they are no longer in a position to do. However, the standard fee required for a new entry has been waived.

great news on whoever wins more races is champ. but hang on a sec. this season looks to be a thriller… and if there will be a lot of different winners, expect a racket at the end of the season…. i would have prefered if they stuck to the 12-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 format…

on the other hand, do you think this agreement has a retroactive effect, thus making Massa 2008 World Champ? no, well i had to try,,,

I like everything in the “Media” section, that should make the teams and drivers a little more open or at least accessible.

I just can not abide this race win business. F1 should be rewarding consistency, and winning more than everyone else but scoring fewer points is not consistency. Yes drivers should be attacking for race wins, but that’s why the suggestion was to make a race win worth more points, which makes a lot more sense than this. I’m thinking about Rosberg 1982, but I wonder how this would effect many championships.

Above all, I was looking forward to seeing how the new technical regulations made this an interesting season, without the dilution from this stupid rule. What, as Ronman said, does it means if we get lots of winners? None of which have a particularly high points tally.

And how do they order the standings after each race? Order by wins first then points? The casual viewer will be confused seeing someone with say 20 points from 2 wins & a DNF listed above someone with 22 points from 1 win and 2 second places…

The $30 mil optional buget cap is ridiculous and I cant believe they are doing it. Lets say hypothetically that Ferrari wins the constructors championship in 2009. That would mean that for 2010 they would have a pretty good car (as far as the ‘standard’ regulations are concerned anyway). So then they could opt to go with the budget cap in 2010, and spend the 30 mil enhancing an already fast car in these areas of greater “technical freedom”. On the other hand, a new team would have to start from scratch and develop a competitive car from the ground up for 30 million? NO WAY. We will not get any more new teams in F1 like this. Secondly, the FiA has implied that this technical freedom is variable, in order to keep things equal between budget-capped and non-budget-capped teams. So in essence they can change the rules if they think a team is winning too much??!! Please tell me this is a bad dream…

Yeah I’m with Hallard on this. This rule is absolutely rubbish. This statement doesn’t make sense:

“The FIA has the right to adjust elements of these freedoms to ensure that the cost-capped cars have neither an advantage nor a disadvantage when compared to cars running to the existing rules”

So, if Force India, a capped team in 2010 presumably, discover some significant engine performance and clock up race winning pace, doesn’t that leave that at an advantage over non capped teams? What will the FIA do then?

These rules are vague. If anything, it should benefit the cost capped teams as thats what the sport is vying for, reducing costs. In time, as the economy picks up, the major manufacturers will be in positions to pump money into the sport once again. So why would Ferrari, BMW and Mercedes ever want to go for the cost cap?